


One Night at Windsor House

by Megakatze (LaufeiaEvans)



Category: Dalton Academy Series
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Sleepovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:14:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29056509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaufeiaEvans/pseuds/Megakatze
Summary: Stuart House has become uninhabitable for the night, and the Stuart Trio are forced to bunk with the Windsors. They devise different methods of dealing with this fact.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9
Collections: Genuary 2021





	One Night at Windsor House

**10 p.m.**

“Okay,” Reed says brightly, crawling back out of the closet on his knees with an armful of half-empty paint bottles. They’re acrylic, mostly, though it’s a pretty haphazard collection of paints that most likely don’t even match up. Reed spills them out onto the floor between Julian and Kurt, the collection joining several canvases of assorted sizes that he’d pulled out from a bin under his bed. “This should be enough!”

“I think that’s more than enough,” Kurt remarks with an amused smile.

Reed finally settles down opposite the two of them, unfurling what looks like a small apron with pockets full of brushes. “Take whichever ones you like,” he says, offering them to Kurt and Julian.“I’ll clean them later, so don’t worry about that.”

Julian runs his fingers gingerly over the brushes, taking a moment to survey the selection. Reed has a huge range of sizes and shapes, including several that Julian can’t even begin to imagine the use for. Finally, he selects one that looks relatively simple, medium-sized with a rounded edge. Kurt goes next, taking a large flat brush and a smaller one that reminds Julian of the watercolor sets he’d played with as a kid.

As they pick out canvases and select the colors they want to work with, Reed gets to his feet again, shuffling over to the stereo on his side of the room. “We can play music,” he says, thumbing through playlists on the iPod in the middle of the dock. “Let’s see, I have some piano stuff, Disney, ooh this one is pretty good—“

“Reed,” Kurt says gently, exchanging a long-suffering glance with Julian. “Get over here. This was your idea.”

Reed pauses, shifting a little on his feet. “Right,” he mumbles, selecting a playlist at random and slinking back to the circle as the _Tangled_ soundtrack starts playing. “Sorry.”

“Come on,” Julian says with a grin as Reed settles in beside him. “You’ve gotta show us what to do with all this.”

—

“I’m going to bed,” Logan snaps, dragging his oversized comforter over to the unoccupied bed opposite the twins’. He sneaks a glance back at them, scoffing when he sees the matching pouts on their faces.

“It’s so _early_ ,” Ethan whines.

“You won’t even play Nerf with us?”

Logan flops down on the bed, pulling the comforter around himself so that it covers his ears. “Absolutely not.”

It’s silent for all of two minutes, which Logan should frankly find suspicious. But then he hears a muffled giggle, and before he has a chance to contemplate what that means for him a foam dart whizzes past his head, landing solidly in his hair.

“For fuck’s sake,” Logan grumbles. He turns over, burrowing deeper into the blanket, but then another dart bounces off his shoulder blade and he heaves an exasperated sigh. The twins giggle behind him, reloading their blasters, and the next dart lands squarely in the small of Logan’s back.

“Okay,” he mutters, and tosses the comforter down, resigned to the fact that he’ll likely be up all night. He’s not interested in indulging the twins in their Nerf war, but at least he might be able to distract them with something else. “Do you two have anything to do for fun that doesn’t involve bodily injury?”

They both exchange glances, and Evan grins. “Nothing that’s as fun for us,” he says with a smirk. Logan sighs.

“Okay, different question. Do you ever do anything normal?” he mumbles to himself. The twins just shake their heads.

It’s going to be a long night.

—

“So, what do you guys do for fun?”

Derek stands awkwardly in the middle of the room, glancing around at the posters covering the walls and the scattered chemistry equipment across the floor. Satoru dives down in front of him, hastily sweeping some of the glassware into a tray and shoving it under the bed.

“Science, usually,” Drew mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Blowing things up, sometimes,” Satoru says from under the bed.

Derek frowns warily. “Anything I could reasonably participate in?”

The boys look a little hurt, so Derek backtracks.

“No offense, obviously. I’m, uh…not great at science. And I don’t know if blowing anything up is a good idea. Given the circumstances.”

Satoru snorts under his breath. “Probably not,” he mutters.

“So,” Derek says slowly, crossing the room and taking a seat at the end of the large futon set up in the common space. “Any other ideas?”

Drew and Satoru exchange glances.

“We don’t _have_ to do anything, you know,” Drew mutters. “It’s already 10. We could just go to bed.”

Derek seems to consider that, but finally, he shakes his head.

“No, we’re supposed to be _bonding_ ,” he says firmly, echoing what their Prefects had told them when giving them these temporary room assignments. Satoru raises an eyebrow. “Come on. There’s got to be something you guys like.” He casts another glance around the room, pausing at the flat-screen TV against the opposite wall. “Video games?”

Drew looks over at Satoru and shrugs. “We like video games.”

**12 a.m.**

“Wow, Julian, that looks really good!”

Julian smiles a little, pausing to admire his handiwork on the canvas in front of him. He’s painted a rose, in shades of purple rather than red, but he’s still proud that he’s managed to focus on it without thinking too much of its associations with Adam.

“Thanks,” he says, dipping his brush in the cup of paint at his feet and shading in one of the petals. “That tutorial really helped, actually.”

Reed beams, settling back in next to Kurt and picking up his own project—a paint-by-numbers coloring book. He’d decided to leave the canvases for the two of them, forcing himself to relax by working on something a little bit easier.

“Can you pass me that yellow?” Kurt asks, nodding to a tube right by Julian’s foot. He kicks it gently across the circle, and Kurt snorts. “Thanks.”

Julian glances over, watching as Kurt mixes a pale orange for the rainbow swirl he’s painting. The foreground of the canvas is a row of piano keys, and Julian’s lip quirks in a small smile when he sees it.

“That’s nice,” he mutters, nodding to Kurt’s painting before glancing back down to his own.

“Thanks,” Kurt says again, his voice softer this time.

—

_I AM NOT AFRAID TO KEEP ON LIVING_

_I AM NOT AFRAID TO WALK THIS WORLD ALONE_

_HONEY IF YOU STAY, I’LL BE FORGIVEN_

_NOTHING YOU CAN SAY CAN STOP ME GOING HOME_

Logan takes a deep breath, falling back on his heels as he reaches up to brush his hair out of his face. The twins flop down on the bed on either side of him. Struggling to catch their breath after belting out the last chorus of "Famous Last Words," they exchange glances, Logan’s face breaking into a smile at the sight of that familiar glint in their eyes.

“We haven’t heard you sing like _that_ in a long time, Knave,” Evan remarks, and Logan chuckles.

“Yeah, well, it’s been a couple years since my seventh grade emo phase.”

“Don’t tell us you’re too cool for us now,” Ethan whines, and Logan scoffs.

“I’ve always been too cool for you two,” he mumbles.

Evan’s arm snakes around Logan’s waist, and he sighs, letting the twins drag him down onto the bed. It is nice, he thinks, being able to hang out with them again as if the events of the past few years had never happened. There’s still a bit of a wedge between them, and probably always will be, but they’ve also had some kind of understanding even at the worst times that doesn’t look like it’s going to fade any time soon.

Logan laughs under his breath as Ethan tucks his head into the crook of his arm, nuzzling his neck like an overly persistent cat, and he begrudgingly reaches up to ruffle his hair.

“Are you going to let me get some sleep now?” he mumbles, and Evan laughs against his chest.

“Maybe,” he says, and Logan only pretends to be annoyed.

—

“What the fuck?” Derek yelps, and Satoru’s snickers can be heard even over the blaring of the TV. “Did you just fucking blue-shell me?!”

“Yup,” Satoru says dryly, reaching for the bowl of cheese puffs without taking his eyes off the screen.

Scowling, Derek reaches over to grab a handful, muttering quietly to himself. On Satoru’s other side, Drew jerks his body to the left, cursing under his breath as his character dodges a line of banana peels.

“You know you don’t actually have to move to dodge,” Satoru mutters calmly, but Drew just scoffs.

“It helps,” he says, and Satoru shakes his head.

They reach the finish line, ending their tenth race of the night with Derek in fourth and Drew bringing up first place. Derek tosses down his controller, leaning against the back of the couch with a huff and reaching for another handful of cheese puffs.

“Fucking Baby Peach got me,” he mumbles around a mouthful of snacks.

“She sucks,” Drew agrees. “But I think that one was all Satoru.”

Satoru grins, folding his legs underneath him on the couch and leaning just a bit further away from Derek and closer to Drew. Derek blinks, glancing between the two of them and wondering if Drew notices.

“Another round?” he says nonchalantly, pulling up the character selection screen, and Derek shakes the thought from his head as he raises his controller again.

“You’re on.”

**2 a.m.**

“…and it’s nice, you know, I can tell he’s really trying…it’s just that sometimes I feel like he’s trying too hard?”

Kurt nods understandingly, reaching out to brush a stray lock of hair out of Julian’s face where his head is resting on his thigh. Reed, whose legs are tangled with Julian’s on the opposite end of the couch, makes a small noise of understanding.

“Yeah, I get that,” he says quietly, picking at the edge of his fingernail. “He’s probably overcompensating, you know? Like he feels like he has to make up for being a jerk.”

“Definitely,” Kurt agrees, and Julian sighs.

“I know,” he mutters, curling closer into Kurt’s lap. “And I appreciate it, I just feel like he’s treating me with kid gloves. Like, I don’t need that. I’m not _broken._ ”

“Oh, believe me, we know,” Kurt says wryly. “Heaven knows I’ve talked shit about you enough times, and you’re still here.”

Julian raises the pillow he’s been hugging to his chest and smacks Kurt on the arm with it. Kurt snickers. Reed shakes his head incredulously as Julian settles back in, curling around the pillow as Kurt’s hand settles in his hair.

“He cares about you, though,” Reed says quietly, nudging Julian’s ankle with his own, and Julian sighs.

“Yeah, he does,” he mutters, staring off into space. “That’s nice, I guess.”

Kurt and Reed exchange glances, and Kurt shrugs. Reed giggles silently to himself, and he shifts position, resting his head against the back of the couch.

—

Logan can’t quite get to sleep. It’s not a bad thing, not this time—he isn’t fighting off a panic attack or desperately trying to avoid nightmares by staying awake until he passes out. He’s just a little uncomfortable, stretched out on the twins’ bed with the two of them curled around either side of him.

The bed is just a little too small for the three of them, all six feet and change each, but they’ve found a way to compensate by snuggling as close as they possibly can. Logan tries to shift position, to roll his shoulder underneath Ethan’s head so his arm doesn’t fall asleep. But they’re both passed out, and they refuse to budge.

Sighing, he resigns himself to the fact that he’s stuck for the night. It could be worse, he figures. At least they’re warm. They each have one leg wrapped around his own, a tangle of limbs under their heavy comforter. They’re quiet, too, which is a rarity in and of itself. Logan thinks back to the times he’d shared a bed with his friends in Stuart—Julian, who despite his unrelenting insistence to the contrary is a chronic snorer, and Derek, who sleeps so lightly that he’s kept the both of them up with his constant shifting and mumbling. These two might actually be the preferred option, at least when they’re unconscious.

Logan closes his eyes, letting his head fall to the side, his cheek pressed against Evan’s forehead. With one arm around each of the twins, he relaxes against them, settling in for one of the most unexpectedly peaceful nights he’s had in a long time.

—

When Derek finally went to sleep on the couch shortly after midnight, Drew and Satoru had definitely been in their own beds. But when he wakes up abruptly in the middle of the night and stumbles into the bathroom, he returns to see Satoru’s bed empty, the boy apparently having crawled in next to Drew at some point in the last hour.

Derek blinks, staring for a moment at the two of them, curled up under a TARDIS blanket and just barely visible in the dim light. When he finally closes the door, making his way back out to the futon by the light of his phone, he finds himself smiling a little. He wonders briefly if there might be something going on between them, but then he remembers how many times he’s fallen asleep in Logan’s bed in the past few months, and starts to think that maybe their friendship is just like that.

It’s funny, he thinks, how this random assignment during an unexpected disaster had thrown him in with these two, a pair of Windsors he would have expected to have little, if anything, in common with. But they’d had a good time, playing games and chatting about school and a few of their mutual friends. The two of them were unexpectedly funny, too, playing off of each other with practiced ease like they'd been friends their whole lives. They were weirdly in sync, almost a package deal in a way much less creepy than whatever the Brightman twins have going on. And, Derek thinks when he sneaks a glance over at them in the dark, they’re pretty cute together, whether there's actually something there or not.

He may have been skeptical of this arrangement at first, but even Derek has to admit that these particular Windsor boys are pretty cool, actually.


End file.
